d
running near and parallel to the seaside, the change in his countenance
indicated that he had learned the whereabouts of a city of refuge.

An hour later Mr. Putchett, having to bid no family good-by, to care
for no securities save those stowed away in his capacious pockets, and
freed from the annoyance of baggage by reason of the fact that he had on
his back the only outer garments that he owned, was rapidly leaving New
York on a train, which he had carefully assured himself did not carry
the dreaded Bayle.

Once fairly started, Mr. Putchett in some measure recovered his spirits.
He introduced himself to a brakeman by means of a cigar, and questioned
him until he satisfied himself that the place to which he had purchased
a ticket was indeed unknown to the world, being far from the city,
several miles from the railroad, and on a beach where boats could not
safely land. He also learned that it was not a fashionable Summer
resort, and that a few farmhouses (whose occupants took Summer boarders)
and an unsuccessful hotel were the only buildings in the place.

Arrived at his destination, Mr. Putchett registered at the hotel and
paid the week's board which the landlord, after a critical survey of his
new patron, demanded in advance.

Then the exiled operator tilted a chair in the barroom, lit an execrable
cigar, and, instead of expressing sentiments of gratitude appropriate to
the occasion, gave way to profane condemnations of the bad fortune which
had compelled him to abandon his business.

He hungrily examined the faces of the few fishermen of the neighboring
bay who came in to drink and smoke, but no one of them seemed likely to
need money--certainly no one of them seemed to have acceptable
collaterals about his person or clothing. On the contrary, these men,
while each one threw Mr. Putchett a stare of greater or less magnitude,
let the financier alone so completely that he was conscious of a severe
wound in his self-esteem.

It was a strange experience, and at first it angered him so that he
strode up to the bar, ordered a glass of best brandy, and defiantly
drank alone; but neither the strength of the liquor nor the intensity of
his anger prevented him from soon feeling decidedly lonely.

At the cheap hotel at which he lodged when in New York there was no one
who loved him or even feared him, but there were a few men of his own
kind who had, for purposes of mutual recreation, tabooed business
transactions wit